Southern California -- this just in

USC shooting: Man has 7 bullet wounds, will 'pull through,' dad says

November 1, 2012 | 11:13
am

This post has been updated. See below for details.

The former Crenshaw High School football star who was shot at a Halloween party at USC was in critical but stable condition after a three-hour surgery for seven bullet wounds, his father said Thursday.

Geno Hall, the 2009 L.A. City Football Player of the Year, was recovering in the intensive care unit at California Hospital after sustaining bullet wounds in the left thigh, back of leg, buttocks and arm, said his father, Eugene Hall. He said his son had attended the party Wednesday night with several of his former football teammates when he and three others were shot.

"The doc says he'll pull through but they're keeping him up there," said Hall, a 47-year-old barber in Compton.

Hall identified another victim as Davonte Smith, one of his son's Crenshaw football teammates. Smith was also being treated at California Hospital after being shot in the foot, he said.

Hall said he did not know why his son was shot or who the suspects were.

[Updated 11:32 a.m., Nov. 1: Police have previously said that Geno Hall was shot three or four times in the torso after an argument.]

The younger Hall was working on an associate of arts degree and playing football at West Los Angeles community college, his father said. His goal was to transfer to a Division 1 university, possibly in Oregon, Hawaii or New Mexico, to play football.

Hall said he had fallen asleep on his La-Z-Boy chair watching TV with his grandson when another son called and said Geno had been shot at a USC party. That son, one of Geno Hall's 13 siblings, had gotten a call about the shooting from a friend.

"It made me jump up and fly right up to the hospital," Hall said.

He said he arrived at the hospital while his son was in surgery and had not yet spoken to him.

Hall questioned whether the shooter was a college student and said that USC should keep those who are not in school away from campus parties.